I am a guy. One X, one Y, a penis and two testicles, testosterone, and all the secondary sexual characteristics that derive from the above. Sexually attracted to women. Born, raised, and lived my whole life as a male of the human species. And for as long as I've been alive, save for the past few years, the above has been sufficient to define me as having male gender.

It's only recently that I've been exposed to the notion of sex and gender being two separate things. But the vast majority of the planet still uses them interchangably, and for a very simple and obvious reason.

So here I am, a young adult living on the cusp of the twenty-first century, trying to integrate my understanding of the word "gender" with homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, transvestites, and every other variation on the sex/gender pairing that can possibly exist. Thanks to the Internet, I've known one person from just about every category. I've watched most of the movies. I've considered all the possibilities. I've opened my mind about as far as it can go without snapping off the hinges.

But do you know what I keep coming back to? "Men have penises, women have vaginas." "Men should be attracted to women and women should be attracted to men." Anything else is and should be considered an anomaly. Not because that's the way I was brought up or because that's the position my religion holds, but because that's the way I am.

Sex, gender, orientation, they're all the same to me. Doubtless they always will be. Asking me to define my gender separate from my sex is like asking me to define the clouds separate from the sky.

Getting a manicure/pedicure for me is something I'd prefer to do with shades on so noone will recognize me. My nailpolish starts chipping away a day later anyway so I don't do them often, but I crave them. I buy practical (yet usually chunky or platform or BIG) shoes. Meanwhile, my fetish boots of choice are Riot Grrrl-ish with a big ole girly heel and shiny vinyl. And I almost wore NaughtyGrrrl leopard print pumps to Wicker's last party. I wear glitter often and do my makeup dramatically and I'm the first to jump at the opportunity to play dress up -- so long as it's just dress up and not having to be dressed up for more than a few hours! I can't stand being a girly girl for much longer.

What makes me feel the most awkward, though, is that I like to read girly girl magazines. This has only really hit me recently. Somehow I have a subscription to Mademoiselle, for starters. I started reading it on the subway, and then a few articles later I was too embarrassed to continue and put it away, whipping out my Utne Reader joyfully, although I couldn't focus at that point. My face was a shade of pink and I just generally felt strange about feeling strange about reading the Millie their new nickname issue in public.

Last night I curled up with said magazine and finished it up, ripping out keepsakes like an article about make-out parties and two unique advertisements for my scrapbook. Oh, and I also ripped out an offer for a free nailpolish (a light pink, nonetheless, which is one of the shades I don't think I have). Then, after I closed the back cover, I orgasmically deposited the magazine into the garbage can. Throwing it out is just *so* satisfying, as if it was dirtydirty pr0n I wouldn't want my parents to catch me having. Except, I don't even live at home.

And yet, it continues. My flatmate gives me her copy of Elle when it arrives before she even reads it. She has subscriptions to a few different girly girl magazines, all of which end up in my room. I'm elated, and disturbed.

I don't understand how the very magazines I mock while reading end up playing such a big role in affecting how I view my gender. I know better than to chide myself because I don't look like the chicks in there. I like my curves. I'm not turning to the magazine for anything more than amusement and a peek into the mind of the Norms. I think. I'm just someone who adopts bits and pieces from different cultures and corners of society into my identity.

I can't imagine too many people actually define their gender based upon their chromosomes. Until recently, who knew? Probably most of the 6+ billion people alive today, let alone the 80+ billion living in the past, couldn't tell you what a chromosome was. And of those who can, how many have actually had theirs examined to verify they are exhibiting the correct gender expression based upon their genes? Or have had parents do so at their births to ensure they were reared so as to conform to the proper gender role? Realistically, people can't and don't define their gender based on knowing about their 46th chromosome, because they don't have that information.

Maybe it makes a bit more sense if we define our gender based on how our genes manifest themselves through our bodies. We can see that, at least when we're naked. Unless the child is one of those 1-in-2000 born with anomalousgenitalia (i.e. intersexed), a doctor or midwife feels pretty confident declaring, "It's a girl" or "It's a boy" after a simple external examination.

In a normal XYfetus, at about 2 months after conception, a "hormonal wash" of androgens (the first of many) begins a masculinization process. If this "wash" does not occur, as in normal XX fetuses, or if the androgens cannot affect it, as in an XY fetus with CAIS, the fetus continues development as a female. The Y chromosome triggers the production of androgens after birth as well, most notably at puberty, but the bodies of these androgen-insensitive XY people cannot react to them. They don't even grow hair in the armpits and pubic area, which is a response in normal XX people to the androgens their bodies produce. However, while those with CAIS are sterile and may need some reconstructive surgery to have comfortable vaginal intercourse, they for the most part look and act like "normal" women. To declare them men based solely on their XY chromosomes would be absurd. They don't look or behave like men, nor do they have that internal sense of being men. As far as they are concerned -- XY chromosomes notwithstanding -- they are women. And this is only one of the many variations of chromosomes and sex in humans.

Most of these people have (or had) "normal" male or female bodies, however. To those of us raised in a modern Western society, the idea that there are two genders -- man and woman -- based upon physical sexual characteristics -- male and female -- is so obvious that it's tough for us to tease what are actually two separate things apart. It seems so intuitive and, well, common sense. It's in our cultural atmosphere, and we breathe it in like we breathe in air, without giving it much thought. So why would these people think their gender to be anything other than what their bodies signaled to the rest of us?

We don't know. For some, it may simply be a feeling of being psychologically constrained by the roles dictated by the bodies they wear. However, there is some fairly recent research that hints that hormones present in utero influence not only what form our bodies take, but where our sexual attractions will lie and what gender we will perceive ourselves to be. It's possible our sense of our gender is formed, in part, in the womb. Those whose bodies are congruent with their internal sense of gender would have very little cause to question it and the role their culture prescribes they play. Those whose sense of gender and body are incongruent will find themselves out of place in their own skin. Some cultures provide social roles within which these people find relief for this gender dysphoria. Many others do not. Western society, for example, is highly suspicious of those who don't or can't conform to the behaviorassigned to them by their biological sex. (Note the mockery and viciousness faced by many homosexuals (who violate the expectations of which sex each gender will be attracted to) and transgenders.)

We carry our sense of gender within us, just as we do all those other traits which make us us. For those who are comfortable, both in their skin and with what their culture expects from them, the conflation of physical sex with gender expression may seem intuitively obvious. That others do struggle with a dissonance between body and gender offers the insight that it's not quite as obvious as we might think, spurring us on to ask questions we never would otherwise.